Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
If 56 'classes' are just animation skins combined with buffs to the same ol'stuff, it will be tragic
Ironhope
Member
If you only actually have 8 classes and the other 56 promissed are just some different appearances and buffs added to the same stuff we already played for so many levels and got used to... it will be a really bitter pill to swallow.
Thats not what your fans want.
You promissed a necromancer.
Give us a necromancer.
A summoner with a different skin for his bear and some 10% extra damage here and there, maybe a minor heal bonus for his summons at times, isn't a necromancer class.
You promissed a templar.
Give us a templar.
A cleric with a light-sword animation instead of a whip one and with a 10% damage increase on his spear, isn't a templar.
We don't want reskins plus normal buffs you would and should obviously get while leveling.
We want actual, unique, distinct, characters with abilities and passives which fit our chosen theme, the spirit of what we already chose to be.
I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who will be disappointed by the game eventually simply because they imagined it to be something which wasn't promissed, but this right here
this was promissed.
Thats not what your fans want.
You promissed a necromancer.
Give us a necromancer.
A summoner with a different skin for his bear and some 10% extra damage here and there, maybe a minor heal bonus for his summons at times, isn't a necromancer class.
You promissed a templar.
Give us a templar.
A cleric with a light-sword animation instead of a whip one and with a 10% damage increase on his spear, isn't a templar.
We don't want reskins plus normal buffs you would and should obviously get while leveling.
We want actual, unique, distinct, characters with abilities and passives which fit our chosen theme, the spirit of what we already chose to be.
I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who will be disappointed by the game eventually simply because they imagined it to be something which wasn't promissed, but this right here
this was promissed.
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Comments
I'd just like to explicitly exclude myself from this 'we' business.
So you can tell me that if you are presented two options
1. 64 classes.
2. 8 classes with various skins and some buffs you should and would normally get while level progressing
You would seriously chose option 2?
Either way sir, I suggest you check the Alpha presentation streams and youtube sections.
People hear 64 classes, they see necromancer, warlock ,shaman, templar, paladin, etc they want actual classes.
Right now, I feel like the devs are not optimistic at all when it comes to them developing this and it's just a pitty because it (classes) is a basic selling point that they need to get right because its important is felt and it matters before any innovations like massive 500 player sieges, open world caravan pvp, ship pvp, etc things are felt and matter.
No, seriously, go to those twitch, youtube, discord, etc sections and tell me people expect and would be totally okay with some new skins and minor buffs (short stun on hit besides the normal small damage).
Absolutely will choose option 2.
Have tons of posts about why I'd choose option 2.
Come from games where I explicitly choose option 2.
Option 2 for life.
In this day and age,
It. Is. Too. Much.
We can only hope that they can get as close to this dream as possible.
I also think you have a poor understanding of how augments affect Active Skills.
You should probably wait to test the features before complaining about how they won't work.
In D&D terms, it's 8 classes and 64 sub-classes.
I am happy with that.
That is not how Secondary Archetypes and augments work. It's not simply a reskin plus a little more damage.
Doing a bit more research on the wiki might alleviate some of your fears.
No it wasn't really, since they have already said it won't be 64 totally unique classes, but variants of the 8 base classes. The degree of variance we don't know yet.
64 unique classes would be a nightmare to balance as well, and would be a bad idea for the game.
I'm uncomfortable with Ashes' use of the words "class" and "archetype" because this is 100% setting up expectations that are going to be disappointed - on paper it looks more like what the average person would call a Class and Subclass system.
Still, 8 archetypes is plenty, and the augment system sounds like a blast.
Unless each "Class" can establish its identity distinctly compared to its "Archetype" siblings, I don't think we'll care if it's an Apostle or a Shaman casting Resurrection.
To give a concrete example:
Maplestory over its almost 20 years of existence has been continually introducing new classes.
Currently you have ~50 classes to choose from.
There are so many that it's become a meme.
Now consider: a 2D game that was sitting on the top of the Korean MMO charts for a long time (i.e. well funded) takes 20+ years to reach 50 classes. The average singler-player AAA game doesn't have more than 5 classes with deep skill trees.
Is it really fair to ask for 64 unique classes with deep skill trees at a game's launch?
The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.
Each skill in the primary tree will have several augment options from the secondary tree. This is an example of horizontal progression.
Augments to primary skills can fundamentally change the way the ability works - adapting what the ability once did to incorporate the identity of the secondary archetype/class.
If a Fighter were to choose Mage as a secondary archetype, the fighter would become a Spellsword. This combination opens up augments that can be applied to skills in their primary skill tree. Fighters have a Rush skill that allows them to rush towards a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down. A Mage's escape augment could be applied to the rush skill, which would now teleport the player to the target; thus eliminating the charge time on the skill.
and
There are four primary groups of augments assigned to each base archetype. Balancing of augments relates to the four augment groups for each of the eight archetypes.
Even though augments do radically change the way your active skills provide you abilities, there's still a primary focus on the base archetype itself and not the 64 whole classes. – Steven Sharif
We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are you know 64 different versions of... radically different classes. – Jeffrey Bard
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes
As we can see, we shall probably expect functionality changes on the base skill of the 1st archetypes, aswell as possible small changes such as the "re-skin with some buffs or number tweeks".
Even tho i believe that might change in the future, i believe they will follow those concepts as a matter of keeping up with the scope.
Aren't we all sinners?
Agreed on both counts.
I’ve called out Intrepid for years about their deliberate misrepresentation of the options that players will have.
Yes, it’s deliberate. They wanted to be able to advertise 64 CLASSES!!!!111 while knowing damn well that they have only 8. It is basically a lie. They play a game where they wink and say, “Oh, we use the term class differently than every other game in history.” As if that excuses things.
This leads to the kind of confusion the OP is talking about. And it’s a big mistake on their part because once people see that there are only 8 classes they’ll give it the middle finger and move on.
But I also agree that 8 is plenty. All that Intrepid needed to do was be honest because what they actually have is pretty amazing. 8 unique and distinctive classes, which can each be augmented 8 ways to have different flavors and buffs. That’s pretty cool. Add in the skills trees for different weapons, and the fact that anyone can learn any weapon, and the additional variations from the 8 races… That’s a staggering amount of variety.
The actual amount of customization is amazing and you don’t have to persist with the “64 classes” nonsense.
It is.
But for pragmatic use of semantics, don't attach asterisks to the words you're using.
Kits. I embrace the grey, my friend.
Sure I get that I have a tank primary and then choose either a mage or rogue secondary I can change my charge into a teleport or Shadow step... The thing is neither of those change the play style of the tank making it feel any different.
Where I am coming from her is that Stephen has mentioned that there will be different types of tanking whether you wanted to do a Dodge tank, shield tank, etc... I don't see how an evasion style Dodge tank fits into the primary tank archetype skill set without secondary archetype augments making major changes to the primary archetype skills? So... I don't get it yet...
I can see where the OP is coming from but I feel like his expectations are a little high. I'm just going to say that I hope there is at least enough identity for each subclass to where I can look at someone fighting and notice differences that let me say that's a beastmaster versus that's a necromancer, and not that all 8 summoner varieties are the same thing.
Okay so I'm going to write one clarification comment for several people because I was clearly misunderstood by the people who ironically claim I misunderstood
I didn't misunderstand anything.
First of all, as @maouw and @Atama correctly understood and noticed, the devs are advertising their game as having 64 classes on social media. I didn't misunderstand anything. This is the result the devs wanted. People going
To get to the main poit: We don't know how the classes (class combos, call it what you will) will really look and personally I find your claims that ''you're native if you actually expect anything well done'' to be utterly unreasonable when we don't even know how the pre-pre-pre--end product looks (we're not even in late alpha, yet alone beta or pre-realease).
But thats why we have a forum in the early development alpha... to voice our concerns.
To say what we would like to see and what we wouldn't.
Okay I got it, you guys want little content and bad conent and those who want more and good are dumb and don't understand anything.
Okay.
Either way.
If the job will be done right and merging archetypes will bring enough change both in terms of gameplay, look and in-game functionality, then it will work.
As I previously said, if they plan to just throw a slightly new appearance on the same old stuff you've been doing for your game-time already with some minor buffs that feel like the same old stuff you've been getting for so far during your game-time... it will suck.
Thats what I said.
That they should do a good job with what they said (and I'm aware they said) they will.
I will also answer particular things by quoting.
The question is how these variations will be.
Done cheap and lazy and feeling like a reskin?
Or done with consideration and well well thought, modifying the class in such a way that it feels both new and powerful in the sense the player who chose the modification wanted.
I mean, depends what you mean with this because as you mentioned, there can be 1000 styles of tank.
Sure, if you combined tank + something, the path you as a choosing player want clearly involves tanking.
The question is, how different in style and performance will this be?
Lets say tanks need to be very mobile for certain instances of pvp tasks... then sure, getting blinks and stuff like that will be a pretty big change.
First of all, I'm not saying to make each of the 56 archetype combinations be something completely different from their parent-class as the parent-classes are between eachother.
That wouldn't even make sense because by definition, for example, a necromancer is a summoner and a templar a cleric and a predator is a rogue.
I'm saying the job they will do, no matter what system to achieve it they will use, needs to be good, not lazy.
They could absolutely pull off a good job with the augmentation system they announced.
Either way, its Alpha 1. They will almost certainly change the system quite a bit by the time of the Beta, yet alone the release.
Its not religious core-dogma.
If something can be done better, do it.
Just make sure the end result is something that will make the person making the choice, the commitment, feel good.
If their plan as devs is (I know I said this many times, I'm sorry ,but it's my main fear) to give a new skin and normal level-up slight buffs then that's going to be a disappointment for a huge amount of players.
Telling them ''you had too much expectations'' is just silly.
As for balance.
It will take years for any relative balance.
Look at other mmo-rpgs.
What matters is that the game will be fun.
And making what should obviously be a serious choice (your class combo) matter is a serious step in that direction.
The devs have shared adequate details for us to understand how the classes will work.
You may not know. And the examples you provided indicate you don't know how augments work. That's OK.
Take some time to surf the wiki. That's what the wiki is for.
You're going to voice your concerns about features and mechanics you don't understand? Sure. Forums are here for that, too.
Knock yourself out.
QQ
So...test it and find out.
As we said... that is not the plan.
Please do explain what I misunderstood.
You keep repeating it while brining 0 arguments for this possition of yours.
Its Alpha 1.
Things will realistically change massively by beta, yet alone release date.
Nobody knows exactly how the final augment results will look.
They could end up great. They could end up decent. They could end up bad.
This is an alpha forum, we're here to voice concerns. Well my concern is that they could end up doing this aspect of the game badly, which is why I made this post.
Some say I shouldn't worry and that things will be okay because [...]
Some say I'm expecting too much and that nobody even wants good content (class combos being distinct and actually functioning differently in a meaningful way).
At the end of the day, if we don't voice expectations, if we don't voice what we wouldn't like to see, the end result will be lacking, as opposed to a scenario where we say what we expect and what should be done.
1:39:36
Examples from Steven himself:
Fighter + mage teleportation school combo which makes charge instant, using the blink animation.
Figher + mage elemental school combo which gives your charge a different animation and a dot.
Figher + mage elemental school combo which gives your charge a different animation and a stun.
As I said (yes I do understand how the augment system they explained works, please stop spamming me that I don't, I do) the system could work out well it could work out badly.
The first example he gives is pretty great. While its not such a notable buff (I mean, maybe it will be, from the alpha tests it didn't look like such a big buff but its an alpha yeah) it does do a great job when it comes to making your class feel distinct and it makes you feel like a battle-mage (spellsword, whatever).
The other two are just underwhelming.
Maybe the examples he came with off the top of his mind, on the spot weren't the best.
Maybe it just seems underwhelming because it's out of context and if we put it together with a description of the whole spellsword class, it would not be underwhelming at all.
As I said, the system could be used for good results or it could have lazy results, depending on how much effort they put into it.
We, the potential future players should make it clear however that we expect the the 8 variations of each class to be distinct, to be relevant, to offer us the gameplay path we chose.
If they're going to lazy it, even if their innovative systems work out well (ships, nodes, mmo sieges, caravans, etc), a lot of people are going to give them the middle finger and leave because they felt cheated on a core aspect of any mmo-rpg, their character. As Atama very correctly pointed out.
You won't know if something is underwhelming until you test it.
When you test it, you will be able to meaningfully provide feedback about changes to make the augment(s) you don't like better.
"If they're going to lazy it" isn't productive feedback.
You really should spend some time reading the wiki to gain more detailed knowledge about those examples.
In that interview, Steven gave a quick short version, because he's shared an extended version several times before, and you're left thinking that's all there is to it.
It is when the ''don't be lazy'' is followed by the ''make sure the class combinations feel distinct, as a meaningful choice that has a meaningful impact of the class gameplay, make sure the result is worthy of the heavy names they received (necromancer, warlock, templar, paladin, brood warden, etc)'' as opposed to ''a new spray paint on the same old car''.
You are...cute.
Classes/subclasses/(name them what they want)
Can be distinct enough and respect their theme without having deep skill trees.
I mean, by definition a necromancer is a summoner and a templar a fighter so yeah, it makes sense for them to be connected.
My point was not having the same car with a different spray paint, while marketing like you have 64 classes and using such heavy names (necromancer, templar, paladin, brood warden, warlock, etc).
I honestly believe they could make the ''daughter classes'' .... ''specs''.... whatever they want to call them, distinct enough with the philosophy they announced (augmentation, that thingy). It just depends on how much imagintion, passion and effort they're ready to put into it.
its something I hope they won't ignore because its going to bite them a lot in the rear if people see these heavy ''class'' names and end up feeling like that's just not what they got
Let's think about this for a moment. They have stated that augments can mechanically change an ability in a minor way (now deals elemental damage) or a major way (instant teleportation rather than travel time). This means they are willing to make minor and major changes according to what fits. The biggest issue however is the cost and time required to provide more of those major changes. Now apply that to 63 other class combinations.
They will be different from each other assuredly in aesthetic, and partially in mechanics. The only thing that is unclear is to what degree they will go to separate the classes from each other. I dont think they can do too much if they care about balancing.
Secondary Archetype augments allow the option of moving closer to to the play of one of the other Primary Archetypes.
But, we also have Racial augments, Social Org augments, Religion augments, Node augments and Naval augments. So, we should expect quite a bit of variety besides just the class combos.
And the key is not as simple as, "Cool, I got a change in a skill animation plus a dot!"
The key is how the augments change how you play and who in your group you choose to synergize with for stacked effects. (And who in the group chooses to synergize with you.)
On to their actual class design, I think 8 distinct primary archetypes with 8 secondaries providing build diversity will be great. I'm hoping for some augments that significantly change the way an ability works, but expect most of them to be more minor added effects. The important thing should be keeping the 8 primaries distinct from each other, with differences in play styles that covers most of the MMO audience. If the play style of secondaries also feels different, then that's even better, but I don't think that can reasonably be done across all 64 classes.
It sounds like the class system you want is closer to something like Lost Ark (https://playlostark.com/en-us/game/classes). I've only played a bit during their Alpha, but it looks like you pick a base class, then at a certain point specialize into a completely unique class. Abilities and passives change, but this comes at the cost of having much fewer overall build options. Personally, I prefer the system that Ashes is going for and hope it is executed on well.
I am big on player agency. Rigid classes offer little to no customization like we see in WOW or FFXIV. I much prefer games that have very little class fantasy, but a high amount of customization. Games like D&D, PoE or DDO. Where class fantasy is merely a suggestion, and you get to build your character to do whatever the hell you want.
Sure, you could go pure wizard in D&D and cast "wish" at some point. Or you could play a wizard/fighter eldritch knight and use arcane magic to make your sword do extra damage. The hybrid possibilities are almost always endless, and when an advanced crafting system is involved, you can make custom gear that really makes the hybrids shine.
Instead of waiting for the developers to make some rich flavorful arcane magic melee character the way they wanted, you just use the inherent customization to make the character you wanted. It may not be the best possible spec, but normally in these systems people can come up with a meta viable version of the type of class they want to play.
Which is far better IMO than waiting the 3-4 years on average it takes for a mainstream MMORPG to put out a new class. A new class that is never the class you wanted. Remember, bard and necromancer was rumored for WOW before they just merged the two classes into DK... Ridged class games are where fun class ideas and player agency die.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Now, instead of mage go cleric, with augment doing you heal yourself a little when you hit. no more damages improve, but healing, you are now harder to kill => choice between more survivability or more damages.
The main point is : we know the global system. We know that the class are more "specialisation" than real "classes" (in the sense of the "class" word in other MMORPGs). BUT we DON'T know what augments will be.
We can't even predict if the 4 kind of augments from tank will be able to have either damage mitigation AND hate generation. allowing the 7 class with tank as second archetype to fill offtank role during fights. (we can consider it logic, but nothing prove it will be)
Also, here we speak about character identity (more than class identity). But there will be another point :
15 weapons. Any class can pick any of the 15 weapons (and also any kind of armor). They also intend to have each weapon quite specific with their own skill tree. So probably another way to have a "specific" character.
This system of augment is one of major point of Ashes of creation. They know they have to not fail it. So instead of making the alarm ring, which will change nothing for now, wait alpha 2, wait we have the system in hands. The critics on this topic or another will have far more strength than just saying "but if [random fear about system] then the game will fail"
The greatest influences are often the earliest ones.
Be sure I and many people in this thread right now, will comment on Alpha 2 as well.